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Parshat Pinchas
In 1165, an agonizing question confronted Moroccan Jewry. A fanatical Muslim sect, the Almohads, had seized power and were embarked on a policy of forced conversion to Islam. The Jewish community was faced with a choice: to affirm Islamic faith or die. Some chose martyrdom. Others chose exile. But some acceded to terror and embraced another faith. Inwardly, though, they remained Jews and practiced Judaism in secret. They were the conversos, or as the Spanish were later to call them, the marranos. To other Jews, they posed a formidable moral problem. How were they to be viewed? Outwardly, they had betrayed their community and their religious heritage. Besides, their example was demoralizing. It weakened the resolve of Jews who were determined to resist, come what may. Yet many of the conversos still wished to remain Jewish, secretly fulfill the commandments and when they could, attend the synagogue and pray. One of them addressed this question to a rabbi. He had, he said, converted under coercion, but he remained at heart a faithful Jew. Could he obtain merit by observing in private as many of the Torah’s precepts as possible? Was there, in other words, hope left for him as a Jew?
The rabbi’s reply was emphatic. A Jew who had embraced Islam had forfeited membership in the Jewish community. He was no longer part of the house of Israel. For such a person to fulfill the commandments was meaningless. Worse, it was a sin. The choice was stark and absolute: to be or not to be a Jew. If you choose to be a Jew, you should be prepared to suffer death rather than compromise. If you choose not to be a Jew, then you must not seek to re-enter the house you had deserted. We can respect the firmness of the rabbi’s stance. He set out, without equivocation, the moral choice. There are times when heroism is, for faith, a categorical imperative. Nothing less will do. His reply, though harsh, is not without courage. But another rabbi disagreed. The name of the first rabbi is lost to us, but that of the second is not. He was Moses Maimonides, the greatest rabbi of the Middle Ages. Maimonides was no stranger to religious persecution. Born in Cordova in 1135, he had been forced to leave, along with his family, some thirteen years later when the city fell to the Almohads. Twelve years were spent in wandering. In 1160, a temporary liberalization of Almohad rule allowed the family to settle in Morocco. Within five years he was forced to move again, settling first in the land of Israel and ultimately in Egypt. Maimonides was so incensed by the rabbi’s reply to the forced convert that he wrote a response of his own. In it, he frankly disassociates himself from the earlier ruling and castigates its author whom he describes as a ‘self-styled sage who
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on Parshat Pinchas has never experienced what so many Jewish communities had to endure in the way of persecution’. Maimonides’ reply, the Iggeret ha-Shemad (‘Epistle on Forced Conversion’), is a substantial treatise in its own right. What is striking, given the vehemence with which it begins, is that its conclusions are hardly less demanding than those of the earlier response. If you are faced with religious persecution, says Maimonides, you must leave and settle elsewhere. ‘If he is compelled to violate even one precept it is forbidden to stay there. He must leave everything he has and travel day and night until he finds a spot where he can practice his religion.’ This is preferable to martyrdom. None the less, one who chooses to go to his death rather than renounce his faith ‘has done what is good and proper’ for he has given his life for the sanctity of God. What is unacceptable is to stay and excuse oneself on the grounds that if one sins, one does so only under pressure. To do this to profane God’s name is ‘not exactly willingly, but almost so’. These are Maimonides’ conclusions. But surrounding them and constituting the main thrust of his argument is a sustained defense of those who had done precisely what Maimonides had ruled they should not do. The letter gives conversos hope. They have done wrong. But it is a forgivable wrong. They acted under coercion and the fear of death. They remain Jews. The acts they do as Jews still win favor in the eyes of God. Indeed doubly so,
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in honor of
the Bar Mitzvah of
their son Shaun.
BAR MITZVAH
SHAUN MAHER
for when they fulfill a commandment it cannot be to win favor of the eyes of others. They know that when they act as Jews they risk discovery and death. Their secret adherence has a heroism of its own. What was wrong in the first rabbi’s ruling was his insistence that a Jew who yields to terror has forsaken his faith and is to be excluded from the community. Maimonides insists that it is not so. ‘It is not right to alienate, scorn and hate people who desecrate the Sabbath. It is our duty to befriend them and encourage them to fulfill the commandments.’ In a daring stroke of interpretation, he quotes the verse: ‘Do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his hunger when he is starving’ (Proverbs 6:30). The conversos who come to the synagogue are hungry for Jewish prayer. They ‘steal’ moments of belonging. They should not be despised, but welcomed.
This Epistle is a masterly example of that most difficult of moral challenges: to combine prescription and compassion. Maimonides leaves us in no doubt as to what he believes Jews should do. But at the same time he is uncompromising in his defense of those who fail to do it. He does not endorse what they have done. But he defends who they are. He asks us to understand their situation. He gives them grounds for self respect. He holds the doors of the community open. The argument reaches a climax as Maimonides quotes a remarkable sequence of midrashic passages whose theme is that prophets must not condemn their people, but rather defend them before God. When Moses, charged with leading the people out of Egypt, replied, ‘But they will not believe me’ (Exodus 4:1), ostensibly he was justified. The subsequent biblical narrative suggests that Moses’ doubts were well founded. The Israelites were a difficult people to lead. But the midrash says that God replied to Moses, ‘They are believers and the children of believers, but you [Moses] will ultimately not believe.’ Maimonides cites a series of similar passages and then says: If this is the punishment meted out to the pillars of the universe, the greatest of the prophets, because they briefly criticized the people – even though they were guilty of the sins of which they were accused – can we envisage the punishment awaiting those who criticize the conversos, who under threat of death and without abandoning their faith, confessed to another religion in which they did not believe? In the course of his analysis, Maimonides turns to the prophet Elijah and the text that forms this week’s haftarah. Under the reign of Ahab and Jezebel, Baal worship had become the official cult. God’s prophets were
26 Old Mill Road, Great Neck, NY 11023 (516) 487-6100 Shabbat Announcements Parshat PInchas 5775
Great Neck Synagogue
26 Old Mill Road, Great Neck , NY 11023
516-487-6100
Rabbi Dale Polakoff, Rabbi
Rabbi Ian Lichter, Assistant Rabbi
Dr. Ephraim Wolf ,z”l, Rabbi Emeritus
Zeev Kron, Cantor
Eleazer Schulman, z”l, Cantor Emeritus
Rabbi Sholom Jensen, Youth Director
Zehava & Dr. Michael Atlas, Youth Directors
Mark Twersky, Executive Director
Dr. James Frisch, Assistant Director
Rabbi Avraham Bronstein, Program Director
Ari Lipsky, Rabbinic Intern
Dr. Hal Chadow, President
Harold Domnitch, Chairman of the Board
Dena Block, Yoetzet Halacha 516-320-9818
GNS Yoetzet Halacha Dena Block
welcomes your questions about mikvah, observance
of taharat mishpacha (halacha relating to married life)
and women's health, as it connects to Jewish law. Reach out to her at:
Phone: (516) 320-9818
Email: [email protected] All conversations/ emails
are strictly confidential.
being killed. Those who survived were in hiding. Elijah responded by issuing a public challenge at Mount Carmel. Facing four hundred of Baal’s representatives, he was determined to settle the question of religious truth once and for all. He told the assembled people to choose one way or another: for God or for Baal. They must no longer ‘halt between two opinions’. Truth was about to be decided by a test. If it lay with Baal, fire would consume the offering prepared by its priests. If it lay with God, fire would descend to Elijah’s offering. Elijah won the confrontation. The people cried out, ‘The Lord, He is God.’ The priests of Baal were routed. But the story does not end there. Jezebel issued a warrant for his death. Elijah escapes to Mount Horeb. There he receives a strange vision. He witnesses a whirlwind, then an earthquake, then a fire. But he is led to understand that God was not in these things. Then God speaks to him in a ‘still, small voice’, and tells him to appoint Elisha as his successor. The episode is enigmatic. It is made all the more so by a strange feature of the text. Immediately before the vision, God asks, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ and Elijah replies, ‘I am moved by zeal for the Lord, the God of Hosts….’ (I Kings 9:9-10). Immediately after the vision, God asks the same question, and Elijah gives the same answer (I Kings 19:13-14). The midrash turns the text into a dialogue: Elijah: The Israelites have broken God’s covenant God: Is it then your covenant? Elijah: They have torn down Your altars. God: But were they your altars? Elijah: They have put Your prophets to the sword. God: But you are alive Elijah: I alone am left. God: Instead of hurling accusations against Israel, should you not have pleaded their cause? The meaning of the midrash is clear. The zealot takes the part of God. But God expects His prophets to be defenders, not accusers. The repeated question and answer is now to be understood in its tragic depth. Elijah declares himself to be zealous for God. He is shown that God is not disclosed in dramatic confrontation: not in the whirlwind or the earthquake or the fire. God now asks him again, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ Elijah repeats that he is zealous for God. He has not understood that religious leadership calls for another kind of virtue, the way of the still, small voice. God now indicates that someone else must lead. Elijah must hand his mantle on to Elisha. In turbulent times, there is an almost overwhelming temptation for religious leaders to be confrontational. Not only must truth be proclaimed but falsehood must be denounced. Choices must be set out as stark divisions. Not to condemn is to condone. The rabbi who condemned the conversos had faith in his heart, logic on his side and Elijah as his precedent. But the midrash and Maimonides set before us another model. A prophet hears not one imperative but two: guidance and compassion, a love of truth and an abiding solidarity with those for whom that truth has become eclipsed. To preserve tradition and at the same time defend those others condemn is the difficult, necessary task of religious leadership in an unreligious age.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Y A H R Z E I T
Saturday, 24 Tammuz
Sharon Twersky for Hannah Leff
Norman Rutta for Abraham Rutta
Sunday 25 Tammuz
Steven Blumner for Malka bat Yehiel
Marc Gottlieb for Rachel Gottlieb
Marc Gottlieb for Shlomo Schwartzman
Monday, 26 Tammuz
Janet Kashani for Abraham ben Elyahoo
Robert Mendelson for Walter Mendelson
Amy Goldberg-Reiss for Florence Reifle
Tuesday, 27 Tammuz
Eliot Heisler for Sharon Heisler
Deborah Hollander for Sharon Heisler
Martin Sokol for Sharon Heisler
Joseph Sokol for Sharon Heisler
Leo Mindick for Joseph Mindick
Leo Mindick for Shimshon Mindick
Wednesday, 28 Tammuz
Ada Berkowitz for Israel Hass
Alisa Hoenig for Augusta Barbara Olen
Thursday, 29 Tammuz
Adam Zalta for Maurice Zalta
Friday, 1 Av
Ivan Seidle for Hymie Seidle
WITHIN OUR FAMILY Rabbi polakoff’s shabbos drasha
through 5775, is dedicated in memory of
PINCHAS BEN YOSEPH For other such
opportunities please contact
Howard Wolf 212-686-9800 Ext 220
UPCOMING EVENTS
AT GREAT NECK SYNAGOGUE
July 14: Summer Series: Sandra Rapoport
July 21: Summer Series: Dr. Edward Reichman
August 11: Summer Series: Dr. Elana Stein Hain
August 18: Summer Series: Lisa Septimus
IF YOU KNOW OF SOMEONE WHO IS MOVING INTO THE
GREAT NECK AREA PLEASE LET THE OFFICE KNOW.
THE NEW GNS WEBSITE
Have you visited the updated GNS Website
(www.gns.org)? It has davening/candle lighting times,
weekly Parsha, Shabbos Announcements, upcoming
events (including the Great Neck & NSHA calendars),
Mazal Tovs, Sponsorships and photo galleries. You can
even make donations and reservations. Check out the
Aliya-by-Aliya explanation of the Shabbat morning
laining. You’ll also find the answers to the Parsha
Picture Puzzle sheets we challenge you with every
Shabbat.
SAVE THE DATE: NSHA 12th ANNUAL GOLF,
TENNIS, MAHJONG & SPA CLASSIC- Honoring Larry
Horn-Mon., July 13th at Fresh Meadows County Club
for a wonderful day of great golf, an all day BBQ, ladies
tennis and lunch, a spa/pool day, card games/mahjong
lessons, men’s tennis and a sunset cocktail party
followed by a buffet dinner, with entertainment, prizes
raffles and auctions. For additional information re:
sponsorships/participation, please contact Glenn
Zuckerman, Jonathan Muller, Andrew Feldschreiber
or Ryan Ostrow or email Arnie Flatow at
[email protected] or call 487-8687 extension 133.
ATTENTION
We have received numerous complaints from officials
and local residents concerning the danger of walking in
the streets on Shabbat. We request that you adhere to
the following: 1) always use the sidewalk where
available; 2) when walking in the street walk facing
traffic, as close as possible to the side of the road, and
in single file wherever possible; 3) at night wear
something reflective to help drivers spot you. By
following these guidelines not only will we help to
prevent a tragic accident, but we will also be avoiding a
possible chilul HaShem.
Mazal Tov to Negar & Keith Maher on the Bar
Mitzvah of their son Shaun. Mazal Tov to
grandparents Vicki & Barry Maher.
GNS JULY CHESED COLLECTION
Please donate shoes, eyeglasses, sunglasses and cell
phones to the Blumner home, 88 Old Pond Rd, or the
Ambalo home, 11 William Penn, now through Aug. 2nd.
For more information, please see the flyer on pg. 3.
Special Thanks To Ada & Dov Berkowitz for
coordinating the June Clothing Chesed Collection. We
appreciate all their efforts to make this collection
possible. We thank all of you who donated - more than
50 bags of clothing were distributed to many needy
families throughout the Metropolitan area.
MODEST DRESS
Please be cognizant that despite the warmer weather and
summer schedule, we ask that when you come to Great
Neck Synagogue, that you are dressed in modest attire.
This affords all of us the opportunity to honor the
sanctity of the synagogue. Thank you.
RALLY FOR PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH
Join the Stop Iran Now Rally on Wednesday, July 22nd
at Times Square from 5:30-7:30 pm. For more
information, please see Dr. Brody.